


A Thousand Little Pieces

by SylphOfPaperPlanes



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Baymax More like Baemax, Brotherly Love, Cute Helpful Robots, Gen, Hospitals, Or Is It?, Reference to character death, Reunions, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-02-25 01:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2603699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylphOfPaperPlanes/pseuds/SylphOfPaperPlanes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hiro, You’re up early. For you, at least.”<br/>The words skittered and echoed through his thoughts before he could make sense of them.<br/>He was right there. Sitting right there, at the desk like he used to.<br/>---<br/>It's been months since the fire, and Hiro finally feels like he can move on in some way, pick up the broken pieces of himself and what his brother left behind.<br/>And then one morning, he wakes up. And what'd been lost in the fire is found again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The few weeks after the Callaghan Incident had been like the nuclear fallout after a bomb. It was something about losing the last tie to his brother that really broke Hiro into thousands of little pieces, with no one he could ask to help pick up the shrapnel. For the first few days, he stuck to his bedroom and didn’t speak a full sentence to anyone if he could help it. Something at the back of his mind whispered caution that maybe, just maybe, he had been falling back into the pained cycle of hopelessness that came with Tadashi’s death. Breaking, trying to fix everything, and breaking again in the process.

 _How ironic,_ he mused one day, with his face pressed into the pillow and afternoon light streaming through the window above his head. _The one time I actually need Baymax, he’s gone._

Isolation was already like an old friend to him, and all he had to do was open the door for it to reenter his life and throw a blanket of silence and pain over the room. Action figures and robot parts gathered dust, but he didn’t dare to check behind the screen that blocked off Tadashi’s part of the room. That’d be a new hornet’s nest in his heart he wasn’t willing to keep poking.

People had tried to contact him, at least. For a week, the rest of the crew at the Institute sent countless video messages, texts, and even a package filled with glossy photos taken around the lab, but time and time again he couldn’t bring himself to respond. The words were trapped in his hands rather than the computer, and there wasn’t enough will in him to try and find them again.

And then he got the letter.

It was Day Seven of his self-inflicted lock in when Aunt Cass wordlessly dropped an envelope on his desk alongside his dinner. He didn’t immediately tear into it, instead setting the plate aside with the others while staring at the paper addressed to him in neat, tiny handwriting. From the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology.

His thoughts skipped ahead of him. _Were they retracting their offer for him to join? Was it about his microbots nearly destroying the city?_ His stomach fell faster than gravity could carry it. _Were they going to clean out Tadashi’s lab?_

And then, almost before he realized what he was doing, he was tearing open the seal and unfolding the pages inside. He skimmed for answers in a panicked rush, and he was sure that his fingers were leaving sharp half-moons into the print, but none of that mattered.

The message finally got through tear-blurred eyes. It wasn’t any menacing threat, not even a formal announcement regarding classes.

It was a handwritten letter from Abigail Callaghan, mostly to give her thanks in gracefully lengthy paragraphs and flowery apologies on behalf of her father. What caught a majority of his interest, however, was that she mentioned working with the Institute until they could find a suitable replacement for her father’s position.

 _“For now, I’m going to be in charge of the lab space (years of bot-fighting and astrophysics finally comes in handy, huh?) and I don’t think I need to remind you that our doors are always open for a bright mind like you. There’s still a private workshop with your family’s name on it, if you ever feel the urge to return.”_ Stapled to the note, he found a simple application form that he had seen a thousand times over the past year.

Maybe it was how she mentioned that there was a space waiting for him, or even that it was connected to his brother still, but the letter filled Hiro with the most blatant and blooming hope he’d felt since he’d set off to save the city a week ago. His heart ached to be surrounded by the people who stood beside him when he was so alone, and his fingertips twitched for the ability to invent and create, to build and help in any way possible.

He couldn’t recall a time that he’d scrambled around the room more frantically for a pen.

\---

In the next two weeks Hiro was shocked at how easily he fit into the flow of the lab. The coursework was challenging, but not too much for him, so that left him with plenty of time to set up shop and work on whatever sparked his interest.

Of course, after finding Baymax’s chip, rebuilding the robot tended to be the only thing to spark his interest for days at a time.

The rest of the crew flowed in and out of the room at their own paces, busy with their own projects but thrilled to have the youngest Hamada present and smiling as though he was born and raised in the labs.

The workshop his brother used to work in wasn’t huge, but the coziness of it almost added to the connection to him. The shelves were lined with boxes of his old work as well as new gadgets and parts that Hiro had brought with him, and it melded into the perfect harmony of old and new.

He used his own two hands to rebuild the empty space in his heart.

Soon enough, Baymax was rebuilt and had his old operating system booted up along with his memory system intact. ( _No fighting chips for now,_ he told himself. _Better to embrace the comforts that Tadashi coded._ )

After that, he took at least an hour every day to skim through Tadashi’s old notes in his trademark scrawl (Too familiar from notes stuck to the fridge and blueprints left around their room) for any research he could expand on or continue. Everyone would pitch in at one point or another to try and decode a particularly confusing passage or add some information that Tadashi had only mentioned out loud rather than written down.

Honey Lemon rattled off rapidfire chemical equations and reactions like it was offhand information while Gogo drew swift, confident, and clean diagrams on the physics of some of the inventions. Wasabi was in charge of double checking and triple checking facts and re-recording information so it wasn’t lost again. Fred was a surprising amount of help, always being the spark for a new idea or the funds behind an old one. (Who knew that one guy could have so many samples of Uranium just lying around?)

Together, they got through all the papers they could find, refurbishing old ideas and compiling them into a stack of notes that could be studied from every angle and considered foolproof. It was another step towards rejoining his memory rather than moving on from it. And what did they get from it? Improved super suits, armor, better tech and brighter eyes. Gogo perfected her wheels while Wasabi could slice hairs with his blades. Honey concocted perfect mixes of chemical cocktails while Fred’s suit became larger than life. From the past, they built the future.

They worked, it worked. Hiro felt more and more at home in a place so foreign to him, but familiar to his brother. His mind was kept as busy as his schedule, and the vague stimulation kept him out of isolation’s shadow.

\---

Hiro learned to love Sunday mornings. He didn’t have classes on weekends, and his shifts at the café were only in the afternoons and evenings. That turned the blessed hours of sleep before noon into a time akin to a religious event. Aunt Cass knew not to wake him up under pretty much any circumstance, so the world was a joyous blur of exhaustion and light brushing his closed eyelids. His aunt had always mentioned Tadashi being the earlybird out of the two siblings, and that was one pair of his shoes that Hiro couldn’t fill if he tried.

He’d taken up the habit of cocooning himself in blankets, no matter the weather. It was just another barrier against the world for him, really. There was no way for light or sound to attack him with the most childish comfort around his shoulders. He was even safe from the nightmares that bounced around his head in the bleak hours before dawn. (Don’t ask him how it works, he’d never been sure himself.)

It wasn’t as though he was unresponsive, just protected. Warm sunlight fell through the blinds in stripes across his face like golden warpaint and tickled every inch of skin unprotected by his bedhead. A fan on the desk beside him oscillated with a faded nobility (and far too many modifications over the years to count) while it kicked the bangs off his face before letting them settle.

Something interrupted the birdsong and city noise bleeding through the window. Hiro only offered a yank of the quilts over his head, blocking it out. No matter how much he shifted the cover, the sound shuffled through the room and dragged Hiro back to the world of the awake.

The back of his mind spun stories and excuses for him to go back to sleep. It’s just Mochi. Maybe something fell off a shelf and was rolling around. Maybe he’d said something in his sleep that had alerted Baymax, and the giant goof was just stumbling around the room, waiting to be dismissed. He wrote it off as the last inkling of a dream, and drifted back into halfhearted slumber.

And then the acidic burn of solder his his nose. It was a distinct scent, a melted metal that binds circuitry together. He hadn’t been working on anything up in the room for months due to his new lab space at SFIT and the abundance of space in the garage, and while it should have raised a question in his mind, it was more of a comfort than anything. It was like the old days, the ones that lived only through memories. With it came the thin hum of the tool and the fine stream of smoke that could be tasted in the air. It almost didn’t mix with the smell of fresh coffee and pastries drifting up from the café.

Sitting up, he didn’t bother opening his eyes. He probably just turned the soldering iron on last night without thinking, or the cat bumped into the switch as he sometimes did. Running the heel of his hand over his eyes, his eyelids finally cracked open and the bedroom came into blurry view.

Through the mess of his hair, focus flooded in as his consciousness lost the sleepy weight that had settled over him.

“Hiro, You’re up early. For you, at least.”

Dark irises snapped wide open and filled with warpaint-yellow sunlight. He knew that voice. Even over the stuttering hum of the fan and quiet buzz of the soldering iron, the words skittered and echoed through his thoughts before he could make sense of them.

He was right there. Sitting right there, at the desk like he used to. Blueprints were unrolled on the desk’s surface, and sure enough, he was holding a freshly soldered circuit board up to the light.

“Tadashi- I- How...” The words were quick and confused and he _had to be hallucinating_ somehow because this wasn’t real and he had to be _dead_ and the back of his skull thrummed with the pain that he’d staved off with countless hours of busywork and college and it isn’t possible that _he’s right here and healthy_ and there’s _not a scratch on him_ -

“Are you okay, champ?”

 **  
**He wasn’t. He really wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Worry not, this work is definitely going to be happier in future chapters! (And trust me, there /will/ be future chapters!)  
> I'm really hoping to turn this into a Legitimate Project to work on, so any feedback would be amazing! Comments and kudos really really help me stay on track, and feel free to throw ideas/prompts at me on tumblr. (I'm algebrasunshine there!)


	2. Chapter 2

“Scan Complete,” Baymax chirped to the pair. “It appears that Tadashi is in perfect health, although his heartrate is raised. This is a natural response to being surprised.”

Tadashi only blinked in response, giving Hiro a half-amused, half-confused smile. “Told you that you probably just had a bad dream.”

The two sat almost face to face, Hiro on the end of his bed while Tadashi had wheeled over the desk chair. (The robot stood a few paces back, preoccupied with the data he had just collected.) The younger still couldn’t wrap his mind around the boy sitting in front of him. Not a scar marred his skin, and even his clothes seemed the same level of comfortably neat as they had always been.

And his face. Hiro hadn’t noticed it back then, but his brother had a strange, blatant innocence to him that couldn’t be shaken. The confidence that spilled from his features mixed with a blamelessness seen only by those who had lost it far too quickly. The innocence watched him through his brother’s eyes, picking up flecks of insecurity and scars that weren’t on skin but still not quite hidden. Even with... whatever happened, Tadashi still knew how to read him like a book.

Hiro seemed unfazed at the uncertainty in the other’s eyes, poking his brother in the arm once, twice, three times to assure that he was real. “But you... The showcase- the fire... It’s been months!” He tried not to notice how violently his hands shook when he pressed them to Tadashi’s shoulders, then his own forehead.

“I’m fine.” The trepidation sank deeper into Tadashi’s voice, still not breaking eye contact with his little brother while raising an eyebrow. “Baymax, scan Hiro, will you? With a focus on _mental_ health?”

In the half a second it took for the android to complete the command, the siblings played a dangerous game they both knew too well. Since they were little, they’d never argued much with words, but with the most harsh, unyielding staredowns known to man. Both searched the eyes of the other for the signs of lies and intention, while bearing every meticulous detail of themselves back for inspection.

It’d started back in the days that they first lived with Aunt Cass. While their fights were few and far between, they were severe and never-ending in the way that intellectual debates tended to be. Bickering while they worked in the café led to less than satisfied customers and soon enough less patrons, and it was something the newly formed family of three didn’t want to risk. So they settled it with staring contests, and somehow it worked better than resorting to physical violence or “talking it out” (Also physical violence).

“Scan complete.”

And then the half second was over. At Baymax’s remark, both boys snapped out of it, focusing back into reality with no clear winner but transparent layers of guilt between the two of them. Something about accusing each other of lying about such a serious subject seemed wrong. So horribly, uncontrollably wrong.

“Hiro has no apparent concussions, nor is he under the influence of hallucinations.”

At this, the younger bolted up, tripping over his own feet to stand, to walk, to do something other than just sit there lost in his own worries and thoughts. If Baymax could sense, him, then he had to be real. He had to be. “See?! Tadashi, listen, I don’t know what’s going on or how you’re even here after you...” _Died_. He bit back the word that rose to the back of his throat like bile. A shake of the head and eyes scrunched tight. Hiro grabbed two fistfulls of his own hair as though it would pull the right words or ideas from the depths of his brain.  “I don’t know how you’re here-”

“Baymax,” Tadashi interrupted, wheeling the chair around to face his brother, still holding up his expression of worry and confusion. “Repeat scan, check for signs of recent night terrors, sleep paralysis, or parasomnia.”

Hiro fought back the urge to punch himself (Or Tadashi) in the face. Instead, he settled for his old habit of walking straight lines across the length of the room. Back and forth, back and forth. Falling back into the familiar footprints he’d nearly worn into the carpet, he tried to piece together something, anything say to to the one person he never thought he’d speak to again.

The scan completed with a cheery chirp, and Hiro couldn’t help but roll his eyes while the robot spoke. “Hiro displays no applicable symptoms of the previously listed issues.”

“I told you-”

“However, my database does contain extensive information on his past experience with Acute Stress Reaction, which may be an indicator of his current actions.”

That phrase seemed to stop the world in its tracks.

The relaxed (if worried) posture Tadashi had taken up was quickly replaced with a straight spine and tension locked in his shoulders. Hiro’s sight locked onto the floor between his feet, and the carpet seemed to latch onto his feet so he could no longer nervously pace. There was no way in hell he would look up and face the guilt and loss he’d locked away for so long.

The silence was finally broken by the oldest brother with a sharp inhale and a tone spliced with an edge. Hiro didn’t even have to hear the words coming next to know that it would unravel the delicate spool of sanity the two of them had kept wound and close to their chests. “Hiro hasn’t dealt with anything like that since our parents died... How would you have information from back then?”

And there it was. There wasn’t enough time before the robot’s automated response for him to try and spin a more comfortable tale, an easier way to break the news.

The chipper tone gave no indication that Baymax was aware of the stress floating around the room like clouds. “I do not have data reaching back that far. The only information I have stored is from the first day I was activated until this moment. The experience I was referencing was the fire at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology student showcase exactly nine months and fourteen days ago. Hiro experienced severe amounts of grief during the following months due to the loss of his brother, Tadashi Hamada. A full diagnosis history is available if further information is required.”

The words were said in the same airy monotone that Baymax would announce a bruise or common cold, but the illness ran far deeper than the skin or lungs this time around. It was no longer worry but disbelief masking Tadashi’s face, and Hiro dreaded the single gust of wind that would shatter it.

“Fire? M-Months?” He sputtered out, keeping a tight grip on the armrests of the chair. Hiro didn’t dare look up, but he knew that the other’s eyes had likely clouded over and knuckles had gone white with stress. A deep, almost shuddering sigh. “Listen, I don’t know what you two are going on about. The showcase was last night. There was no fire. I’ll admit that the night was kind of fuzzy, but I figured that was because I’d gone drinking with some of my friends. No fire, no death, nothing. I think I would remember dying, though, and I certainly wouldn't have woken up in my own bed.” Hiro dared a look as his brother’s bed, blankets ruffled for the first time in months. He’d gotten so used to spotting the crisply folded sheets and feeling a pang of loss that his eyes had trained themselves away from it. It almost hurt to know he hadn’t noticed that small comfort.

A dissonance seemed to settle between his tone and what he said, but Hiro had a feeling that pushing the subject any more would end with something bitter. Better not to mold this dream into a nightmare.

In the silence that followed, the two boys must have come to a mute conclusion, both for different reasons. Hiro knew that any word to pop the bubble and send him spiraling back into reality would be devastating, though he couldn’t guess his brother’s motives.

It didn’t matter. He was was back. They would be okay, somehow.

Footsteps clicked up the steep steps to their loft in a familiar two tone pattern that signaled Aunt Cass’s presence. Her voice reached them before she did, a swirling, cheery chime laced with song. Sunday mornings were some of the best business days for the café, and it reflected on her emotions.

“Hiro! It’s time to get up! The poetry slam finals are this afternoon, and I’m gonna need some help getting the audio setup together.” And with that, she arrived at the top of the stairs, flour in a streak along her cheek and a tray of donuts in her hand.

Tadashi spinned around in the chair, facing her and dropping the crease between his eyebrows. “Don’t worry Cass, he can help with the baking, but I always set up the microphones, remember?”

Hiro couldn’t help but watch the pan of pastries clatter to the ground below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And chapter two is done! Sorry, I was hoping for this to be a bit more fluffy, but I promise the next chapter is going to be better.  
> Thank you sososososo much to everyone who commented or left kudos, being that it helps me more than anything when it comes to writer's block! (Really the encouragement has been unbelievable so far, and I don't know how to say thank you enough.)   
> I'll try to update again sooner than later!


	3. Chapter 3

Hiro didn’t think he’d ever seen the Café close down that quickly. Customers were shooed out, espresso machines shut off, and the slam poetry night canceled faster than a cup of coffee brewed.

Aunt Cass moved with a daze behind her eyes and a surprising lack of questions asked. Her whirlwind of movement was reduced to an airy flutter, and she flickered back and forth between tasks with a scatterbrained breeze.

As it tended to be, her mood descended on the entire household. Tadashi muttered a dismissal to Baymax, and the robot deflated back onto his charging station without complaint while the birds continued to chirp, the sun continued to shine, and most importantly, the honorable old fan still skittered and spun cool air through the room. The slight breeze dissipated the last smoke of the soldering iron, but Hiro hardly noticed as he rushed to get dressed. Every few seconds, he would listen for Cass’s quiet words of shock and hushed tones as she spoke with Tadashi. Occasionally, he would catch snippets of the other’s voice, trapped somewhere between interpreting the bombshell that was dropped and outright denying it.

Hiro felt his chest becoming so full of something it hurt. It tugged at his heartstrings and make his ribcage it’s plaything. Lungs were occupied with hope and tears tightened his throat until he was sure that any word he spoke would be one mess of sobs and unbridled optimism. He ran a hand through his hair in hopes to quell the spines of bedhead, but only managed to worsen the mess. Part of his mind attempted to count the number of weeks he’d gone without a haircut, but he was at a loss with how many thoughts flitted around his head.

After he had regained a semblance of focus, he made his way down into the café, where Tadashi sat and Cass stood. Both had pastries in hand and silence in the air, his brother eating with a level of caution, as though he wasn’t sure what was real, and that he was pretty sure the donut in hand was more distanced from reality than he was. His aunt, on the other hand, plucked at a croissant and ate the small, shredded pieces while staring intently at the indents her nails left on the bread. The both of them seemed to notice him at the same time, and moved at paces slightly off from normal. Aunt Cass moved towards the door with a rush to her steps and Tadashi made sure to inspect every floor tile beneath his feet while he walked. Confusingly fast and clumsily slow. More of a divide than Hiro wanted to admit.

And then they were off.

It was an unquestioned agreement between the group of them that the hospital was the best route. Where else would they go to report a dead man alive and healthy -and make sure he truly was- before they got any inkling of hope together where there shouldn’t be?

Their footsteps echoed along the sidewalk as the cool (For the never-changing San Fransokyo weather, at least), late-fall air wrapped around them like a blanket. Tadashi muttered something about how it was “supposed to be spring right now” with a halfhearted shiver, but made his way to where the family car was always parked beside the building.

Whether he noticed the absence of his moped or not, he didn’t mention. In the same vein, the other two didn’t mention how they’d sold it two months ago.

 _Too much pain taking up space,_ Cass had tried to reason. They’d had plenty of his other belongings, but something about the scooter’s light scuffs and worn tires had broken the both of them. He’d practically built it himself, (Hiro could remember weeks spent passing wrenches and screwdrivers to his brother elbow-deep in the little engine and a sharp concentration worn like shades over his eyes.) but it’d stood up against the elements far too well over the years. It would have been different for the two of them if the scooter had just stopped working, but no, they had to give it up when it was in mint condition, almost like the day he’d first ridden it.

Three car doors slammed shut, and Cass started up the engine with a moment’s hesitation to make sure everyone had their seatbelts strapped tightly on. Sunday morning traffic could have been far worse than it was, but the atmosphere in the car burned with the need to get there fast and soon. Tadashi’s little quirks filled the car as they passed rows and rows of buildings, with fingertips drumming a beat along the dashboard and dark eyes reflecting in the rearview mirror.

No one spoke. Whether it was awe, anger, or just fear that a word would break the illusion, the air stayed its still brand of serenity blended with caution.

Magnificent victorian homes with flaring roofs and detailed trimmings flashed by. The view was peppered with cherryblossom trees which had long since lost their blooms and were slowly dropping the dried green leaves to the wind and colors of gold and red. The occasional building formed from glass and steel rose with its cold, modern edge to the aged community.

It wasn’t like they were all that new. Hiro had seen these buildings every day of his life, and while the paint might still be fresh on the older houses and the metal supports of skyscrapers stood without rust, they still served as monuments from simpler times in his mind.

There’d never been a day they hadn’t stopped for the trolleys to pass across the road, a day he hadn’t gripped the sturdy fabric of the seatbelt while expecting the same views (Which barely varied with the “changing” seasons) and the fast-paced sparkles of traffic. Even the distant hum of the painted wind turbines floating above the city were an ever present constant in his world.

It’d been the same when he had gone to high school. It’d the same when he’d left for countless evenings of bot-fights. The same for the student showcase. The same for the funeral.

And now, the same view as they pulled up to the hospital.

Hiro honestly wished he could remember more of  the afternoon. From the second they approached the front desk, it was in and out of countless tests. Machines whirred, blood was taken, charts bled spiked lines that meant nothing to Hiro but caused buzz among the doctors. Quiet whispers stayed on the other side of closed doors while the waiting game was played into overtime.

Cass was barely seen at all. When she wasn’t filling out forms or recounting her view of the events, she’d sweep by with arms full of papers for a quick hello and even quicker goodbye, but that was seconds out of hours and brief flickers of comfort in the fray of confusion and medical gibberish.

During times that he couldn’t stay at Tadashi's side, Hiro essentially became the denizen of the waiting room. Every magazine was read from front to back at least twice, and he’d counted every green and blue tile at least five times to pass the time during x-rays and various scans that couldn’t be avoided or looked forward to. While every lab and operating room in the facility seemed at its peak of frenzied activity, the waiting room was the epitome of silence. The occasional snippet of rushed talking or whir of machines reached the stiff space, but the air was ultimately devoid of its own sound. Hiro supposed that’s what the room was made for:  reflection, waiting, worry, a space without influence to steer the thoughts upward or downward.

 _Honestly,_ he thought, _it was like sitting in a room lined with mirrors._ He could almost see his reflection in the faces of other people there who seemed to hold the same expressions of dread and unease.

The swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach hadn’t faded since he’d woken up, and even the idea that all this could be a dream worried him into silence and submission to the thoughts that pulsed across his brain. His heels scuffed back and forth along the tile floor while he would occasionally hum along with the repetitive music emanating from speakers in the wall. It went on like this for what felt like days but had likely been somewhere around an hour or two.

Hairline fractures appeared in the Hall of Mirrors (as he had called it between year-old issues of home and garden magazines) when a nurse arrived with a clipboard and the telltale, vaguely tired look to her smile. Instantly, every person in the room seemed to perk up out of their mass worry and tension.

Of course, all that faded when she requested Hiro to follow her. Even as he left the room, he could feel the cracks being filled behind him as people settled back into their seemingly endless wait.

He was ushered into a small room, mostly taken up by the hospital bed and the harsh clinical smell that consumed a majority of the hospital. The only natural thing was a small window letting the bright afternoon light into the sterile air. Tadashi sat upright in the cot, seemingly unaware of the IV in his arm and the doctor talking once his brother had walked through the door.

Seeing the shift in attention, the doctor, a man likely in his thirties and glasses that seemed far older than him, shuffled the papers in his hands before continuing. “...As we’ve told your guardian, there aren’t any physical signs that could give any clue to... to what happened with the fire. You don’t show any signs of past burns or scars out of the ordinary- besides the back of your skull of course, but that’s already listed on your medical records.”

Hiro remembered very little of that day as well. It wasn’t like it plagued him much, just that it was a fact of life. He’d seen the newspaper clippings and heard the stories. The road was wet, the skies were dark, and a car crash was more than inevitable.

He’d been told he was lucky, only the echo of words like " _t_ _hings get better"_ and " _they're still in our hearts"_  and a few stitches.

Tadashi, on the other hand, preferred to wear baseball caps from that day on.

The ancient glasses slipped down the doctor’s nose and he pushed them up slightly. His eyes stayed stuck on the paper, guarding himself from the nervous glances shot between the boys. “We hesitate to work further on the scar tissue, because while the wound is over eight years sealed, it may trigger any number of problems.” His glance was torn away from the documents with a sympathetic (if somewhat forced) smile that might accompany phrases like _That’s just how it is_ or _I’m sorry for your loss_. Finally, the doctor seemed to pluck the 'right' words out of thin air. “Brain surgery is a tricky thing.” With that, he was done, like the phrase was meant to console the two more than harm them.

The door opened and closed, and then it was the two brothers again.

The stillness of the room likely breathed more than them.

Hiro finally sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Are you okay?”

“Just darling,” The other said with a slight air of sarcasm. “You, on the other hand, look like shit.”

“I forgot how much I hated waiting rooms. It’s like you’re trapped in a little glass box for hours at a time.” He stretched his shoulders with an exaggerated movement, hoping to drive the point home.

“I’m glad I wasn’t the only one uncomfortable here.” A hand nervously reached for the back of his neck. “I’m ready to just go home and sleep for a week. Hospitals aren’t my idea of a good time either.”

“Last time Aunt Cass came by, she was almost done with the forms.” Hiro offered while mirroring the other’s pose.

A dismissal hand wave. “I don’t want to stress her out any more than she already is with release forms and the like. Anyways, it’s the first time I’ve gotten to have a conversation with you since this morning. You aren’t going to ditch your brother who just came back to life, right?”

Something sounded off in the way Tadashi mentioned resurrection, like it was a bitter subject he couldn’t wait to roll off his tongue and out of his life. Hiro knew him better than to bring it up. “I wouldn’t ditch you if we’d seen each other every hour on the hour for the past nine months.”

The two nodded the statement away. It was just a fact as common as gravity to them. One could have mentioned that water is wet and gotten the same reaction.

The silence settled again, and Hiro took the time to watch every movement his brother made. From the smallest twitch of his hand still at the back of his neck (nearly relapsing into his habit of rubbing the spiderweb of scars) to the way his eyes scanned the papery hospital sheets like they held the key to the universe, or at least a new robot design.

There was something so infinitely satisfying about noticing all of his little nuances all over again. Maybe it was selfish of him to be able to absorb every moment of the other’s presence, but it was something he had missed passed the point of comprehension. His phone weighed heavily in his pocket, and a small amount of guilt spread with the realization that he hadn’t even thought about calling his friends about the news.

A few more minutes, he convinced himself. There’s plenty of time later for that. There was only so many moments that would be dulled with this shock and awe, and in that strange area of logic, he decided that before it wore off, it was the best time to spend with his brother.

Hiro heard him take a deep breath, and he finally spoke. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around for the past few months... Whatever happened, you and Cass must have been worried sick-”

Hiro started talking before all of the thoughts bubbled into his mind. His eyes fell to his shoes and lips pressed into a thin line. “For a while I didn’t believe it. They didn’t find- They...They declared you missing, even though all the evidence pointed to... yeah.” Hiro absentmindedly let his hand rest on the back of his skull, cushioned by the mess of hair. “We pulled through, eventually. A lot happened.” He looked up. “You missed a lot.”

Something flashed through his eyes. Had Hiro not caught the flicker of emotion, he would have sworn his brother was in shock. But no, it was thought. Deep, meditative thought.

“It’s not gonna happen again.”

They didn’t mind the silence. It was comfortable enough, and if Hiro squinted, he could say it looked just like old times.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 is done, and holy shit it was long. I might have gotten a little carried away with this one if I'm going to be honest, but I really wanted to take a look into how Hiro is feeling and thinking through all this. (Also, I really mean it this time when I say the next chapter is going to be way happier!)  
> Again, thank you to everyone who commented or left kudos, it means the world to me as a writer! What did you think of this chapter? Are you enjoying the story so far? Will my reign of emotional terror ever end? Your comments keep me going through this!


	4. Chapter 4

It took a week for Tadashi to settle in.

It was surprisingly easy for everyone to fall into old routines and hide the old scars left by a loved one ripped away. Family dinners (and they were so happy to _finally_ be able to call themselves a _family_ again) were instantly content moments for the three to throw around jokes and speak openly about their days. Aunt Cass opened the Café each day with a wide smile and warm coffee for everyone who walked through the door. The three sang along with the songs on the radio in loud and wild bursts as they washed dishes or cleaned up after hours. It worked and it worked well. They could almost forget that it once wasn’t like this.

The newspapers had spit out headlines for the entire week as though Tadashi was no longer a human, but a historical figure risen from the dead. Over half eaten plates of eggs and bacon, he’d read them out loud with the strangest smile on his face. His tone carried a bizarre mixture of disbelief and happiness while he spoke about “The Hero of SFIT Fire” as though it wasn’t him.

In a way, it wasn’t. The Hero was a cloud of smoke and the slightly-worn gravestone in the cemetery on the edge of the city. He was some concept that was only known in print and “couldn’t be reached for a comment at this time.”

To Hiro, his brother was a thousand times better than any immortal celebrity. No newspaper clipping of a sibling had ruffled his hair or dragged him out of a botfight by the hood of his jacket. There was no being of revoked obituaries at the table during meals or watching television with a very real and very tired look to his eyes. At long last, it seemed like The Hero was a persona that Tadashi had accidentally slipped into for nine months and could finally shed.

When meals weren’t eaten and newspapers weren’t read, the kitchen table was a clutter of re-application forms to SFIT (which Aunt Cass and Tadashi carefully filled in with the same stress as the first time through) and dense textbooks (which Hiro poured through during the week he took off from classes).

Hiro climbed the stairs from the café into the apartment, taking half a second to register the piles of work he had to look through if he wanted to stay ahead of the curriculum. It wasn’t like it would be difficult in any sense, but it was just time he’d have to set aside. He certainly wouldn’t be able to focus on any lesson at the moment, not with a mind overpacked with ideas for inventions (as it tended to be after a long shift brewing coffee and tea).

A similar jumble of blueprints and robot parts littered the living room floor, a revival of old projects blended with the new. Even on his way to the couch, Hiro took care to step around the half-completed webs of wire and dissected motherboards with the limited grace of a boy who was still getting used to his growing limbs. There had been talk of clearing a path, but those ideas had long since been considered a waste of time.

With a flick of the heel and a rapid shift in his weight to the other foot, his toes barely missed the dismembered motor of a blender.

A complete waste of time.

He only let out a breath of relief when he touched down on the oasis of a couch, completely melting into the floral fabric and reaching for the remote in more of an afterthought than anything. The television clicked on, and Hiro mindlessly flicked through channel after channel. Shows and commercials swept by in their independent static bursts and sputtered out just as quickly. Soap operas. Talk shows. Cooking shows. Televangelists. Cartoons in a mixture of japanese and english. Everything threw a kaleidoscope of color onto the metal and wire battlefield of a carpet that seemed to consume the screen’s reflections with as much fervor as scrap could muster. He paused briefly on an hour-long news report, but “The Crackdown On Illegal Botfights” couldn’t hold his interest for much longer than any other event.

With an overdramatic sigh, he switched the screen off, swinging his legs over the arm of the couch and let his mess of dark hair hit the cushions. It wasn’t like anyone would hear him complain; Cass was working a double shift down in the café among the sounds of clattering plates and customer’s chatter and Tadashi had gone out to get groceries (or as he called it, “rejoining society”).

For a while, Hiro just sat there, the silence settling like a heavy blanket over the room. Part of him debated letting out a shout of fake pain just so that Baymax would be activated and there would be some sound floating around the house, but to shatter the illusion of isolation felt horribly wrong in every sense. Sunlight glided through windows and into the room without interruption, and only the faintest smell of coffee that somehow managed to cling to everything in the building could remind him that the rest of the world was still functioning outside of the room he was in.

It was a blissful moment of wholeness. There was nothing to divert his attention from the sheer nothingness that weighed on his shoulders, and he slowly sunk into it. He turned away from the robotic fragments that consumed the entirety of the carpet, instead facing the fabric of the couch, covered heavily in patterns of carnations and roses.

The past seven days had been...hectic. The memories flashed across the back of his eyelids faster than he would have liked, but was still grateful to have. Each one was a mile-a-minute moment of disbelief that slowed as it passed his consciousness. With a calm second of realization, it dawned on him that these were his first quiet moments he’d had since he’d woken up a week ago.

The click of the door and quiet pads of footsteps of the stairs immediately snapped Hiro back to reality, and he hesitantly raised his head. The slight shuffle of paper bags alerted him of who it was, and he let himself sink back into the sofa.

Tadashi appeared at the stop of the steps, carrying a bag of groceries in each arm and a look of mild exhaustion in each eye. With only a moment’s hesitation, he picked it his way through the mess of robotic innards. There was no uncertainty in his steps, and sneaker clad feet seemed to stay clear of any and every problem area until he reached the cool, clean kitchen tile.

“You going to help me unpack the groceries, knucklehead?” He asked, dropping the packages onto the counter with a crackle of plastic.

Another dramatic sigh, and Hiro lazily swung his feet back and forth for emphasis. “Not going to happen. Unlike you, I can’t cross the Metal Sea on a whim.”

A second’s wait hit his words as he pulled cans of cat food out of the bags alongside fresh vegetables. “Cass told you to clean it up.”

“And she told you to clean up the kitchen table, but I still see SFIT registration forms.”

Tadashi nodded in a mild mixture of respect and agreement. Silence settled again as he slipped boxes and cans into cabinets, focused more on the task than the conversation.

Eventually, Hiro caught sight of a container of garlic powder in Tadashi’s hand, the label bright red against the pale dust inside. His brother’s dark eyes flickered around open cabinets, uncertainty evident in the space between furrowed eyebrows.

“Spices go in the drawer by the oven.” Hiro called out, avoiding sitting up and moving the faintest edges of sleep from his mind.

“Since when?”

“Like three weeks ago. We moved the old set of silverware down to the shop and it gave us more room up here.” Sure enough, when the other opened the drawer, it was filled with neat, orderly bottles of seasonings. The garlic wordlessly went with the rest, and the bright red label seemed off among the clean glass bottles and jars. The drawer slammed shut with a rush of a movement, and Tadashi paused as though to call Hiro’s attention.

When he felt that his audience was “captivated”, he reached into the bag with a dramatic flourish and produced two plastic containers, and after that, two sets of chopsticks. “Guess who got his brother sushi?”

This got Hiro to sit upright, blinking the stars out of of his vision from moving so quickly. “My money’s on you.”

Tadashi nodded again and walked through the mess of a living room floor again, this time to drop onto the couch beside the other. A container and a pair of chopsticks changed hands, and Hiro wasted no time in peeling off the lid and lifting a delicate roll to inspect it.

“You got this from the supermarket didn’t you?” There words weren’t necessarily accusing, just slightly confused.

Tadashi took it as neither, instead picking at his tray while scouring the cushions for a remote. “Where else would I get it? The restaurant down the block doesn’t open until one.”

Hiro searched as well, grabbing the device from it’s hiding spot beside the armrest. “It opens at eleven.”

The television flickered on, and both avoided looking at each other, instead focusing on the blur of bright colors and sound that were attached with assorted commercials and waiting for the right moment to speak. The conversation, again, became an afterthought until Tadashi dredged it up from the depths of the couch cushions. “Since when?”

The trepidation that hovered before the younger’s words said it all. “Six months ago.”

Silence.

Hiro couldn’t take another second of playing schrodinger's cat with his brother’s emotions, stuck in the bitterly ironic state of dead and alive. He risked a glance up and found him still eating, a distant, yet oddly relaxed look in his eyes as he twirled the chopsticks in the air. “I missed a lot didn’t I?” The tone sounded somewhat casual, and could have fooled someone who hadn’t know him.

Neither said anything, instead eating in the silence mixed with the hum of the news report coming back on air.

The reporter gave her own chipper speech about this and that, the weather and traffic, before delving back into the main story. Pictures of police officers in the depths of San Fransokyo’s less than savory district dotted the screen with informative dignity. This was quickly followed by footage of dismantled battlebots and criminal mugshots followed next. Hiro recognized several of the faces (but more so the robots) from his days pulling in extra funds through programmed fights and scrap-metal brawls.

This seemed to be the jumpstart to the conversation, with Tadashi setting his now-empty container on the coffee table (Really, how did he eat so fast?) while nudging Hiro’s shoulder with his. “Been staying out of trouble while I was gone? I mean, with your lack of moral compass and savior in shining armor, the botfights must have seemed pretty appealing...”

“I stayed out of trouble.” Hiro said after his final bite, picking up a happily sarcastic tone of someone who had dealt with the accusation far too many times. “Also, I don’t know what you mean by ‘shining armor’. Your dumb bike helmet and cardigans? I’m not really sure.”

Tadashi pushed Hiro in the shoulder. Hiro shoved him back. Within a moment’s notice, it turned into an all out tackle war, ending with Hiro’s (luckily empty) tray atop his head and the twin reverberation of childish laughs between them. The plastic was removed from his head, and with a slight crossing of his eyes, Hiro spotted a fair amount of rice still clinging to his bangs.  

“You might want to be careful with that,” Tadashi managed between bouts of laughter, “or you’ll end up with a nickname like Wasabi did.”

“Are you really gonna rat me out to our friends like that? I’m hurt.” A roll of the eyes, and he started to pick out the little grains from what he could see.

“Speaking of the nerd lab,” He let out a deep breath meant to expel the last snippet of amusement in his lungs (and failed, but continued).  “How are they? I only got to send them a quick message that the newspapers are true and I’m breathing, but I’ve honestly turned off my phone since then.”

“They’re good. Still a little in shock, I’m sure.” Hiro once again felt the weight of his phone in his pocket, but this time it was more comfort than fear. He’d texted the group once or twice, and everyone seemed more than ecstatic to have the older Hamada back, even if he wanted some space for now.

“You know I’m going back to SFIT on Monday, right?” He waited until he got a nod back. “Would you mind telling them that? I don’t feel up for facing the wrath of everyone’s texts at once.”

The news report droned on in the background, but Hiro didn’t think it was much of an interruption. “Sure thing. Oh, I forgot to tell you something.”

“What?"

“I hope you don’t mind that I took over your lab.”

Hiro supposed that he earned the smack to the back of the head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter four! This one has to have been my favorite one to write so far, and I just wish I could have had several weeks to get all the little details right!  
> Thank you so so so much to everyone who left kudos or comments! It still means the world to me, and I try to reply to each comment!  
> Words don't describe how much it keeps me going!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies, gents, readers of every age and gender: The Sylph of Paper Planes is back! This chapter is a bit on the shorter side, and I'm terribly sorry for that. More on that after the chapter, but for now, enjoy!

The slow, quiet fanfare of waking up on Sunday mornings was nothing like that of weekdays. Gone was the gentle flow of sunlight and birdsong, instead replaced by the dead stillness and darkness of early hours. No careful word of encouragement would guide Hiro out of sleep, and the scream of an alarm clock took it’s place without grace.

He blindly reached to stop the damn buzzing, missed three times, and finally got it with the slam of a fist onto the button.

Hiro’s eyes snapped open to face bright red numbers.

6:00 AM.

_Great._

He lurched upward, watching the stars of fizzled out dreams fade from his vision. A nightmare blurred in the space of his mind that he couldn’t reach, and it sent shivers down his spine and a shake to his hands that he tried to ignore. Over his stomach and knees, the blankets weighed down on him as though they were lead-lined. Or at least, that was the excuse he came up with. No use trying to get up, covered in metal-embroidered sheets.

Before he could register much of the waking world, a caring hand ruffled his hair, scattering the remnants of fear.

“C’mon, our first lecture starts in an hour and a half,” Tadashi said, voice carrying something endearing and vaguely motivational, much as an excited kindergartener would sound.

Against every instinct that had built up through the past nine months, he felt himself leave the warmth of his bed. While his feet hit the hardwood floor, static cling grabbed at each strands of hair before letting it fall across his eyes again. He didn’t bother with a mirror as he tried to manage the mangled mane, instead merely pulling his bangs back and praying that it landed right.

Once the dark hair framed his vision rather than covered it and the blur of post-sleep haze had drained from behind his irises, he watched his brother gingerly lift Baymax’s charging station by its handle, the giant marshmallow of a robot deflated and safely packed inside.

“Go get dressed, will you? You don’t wanna make us late, right?”

Hiro glanced down at the oversized pajamas he wore and back up at Tadashi, reasoning temporarily suspended by a bitter lack of _being freaking awake_. “What makes you so excited to go learn some stuff we both already know?”

Calloused hands paused where they had been re-securing clasps on the case. Hiro didn’t give it much thought, instead turning and rummaging through his dresser for something that could pass for the day’s outfit. T-shirt and hoodie, a fine ensemble for—

“There’s gonna be a day,” Tadashi started, carefully running a thumb over the case’s clasps. “When you _don’t_  know what’s being taught.”

Hiro barely registered how casual the tone was, how the smell of solder had nearly dissipated from the room, how the rickety fan had likely stopped working in the early hours of the morning.

“Someday, you’ll find yourself staring at something and you won’t know what on earth it means, how it works, or why you bothered in the first place.”

Hiro instantly became interested with the patterns swirling in the hardwood floor, and he focused on following a particularly dark thread of color across the boards. “And?”

“And someday there might not be someone around to help you.” There was a soft punch to his shoulder and the minute brush of a hand over his hair before the door clicked shut, before Hiro was alone with his thoughts and the zipper of a hoodie digging into his palms.

-

It was too strange to be back at campus.

It was too strange to be under constant watch of the other students. It had happened when Hiro had first enrolled, not exactly looking the part of a college student with his height and wide eyes flickering around the campus he had dreamed of for so long.

Even as the two of them walked across grass-lined paths on their way to the labs, Hiro could practically feel the lenses of camera phones trained on them. _“The Hero of the SFIT Fire”_  was rising from the ashes and returning to school, his little brother in tow.

Nevermind the fact that said little brother was an actual, bona fide superhero. It wasn’t like anyone knew that.

From a few steps back, Hiro could hear a girl’s airy chatter, small talk with her friend about absolutely nothing. He didn’t even have to turn around to know her eyes were locked on them, regardless of her discussion of aerodynamics and lectures.

Everything in him wanted to turn around and call her out on it, to make some snarky remark loud enough for the entire campus to hear. She hadn’t lost a brother like Hiro had, hadn’t spent hours and hours curled up wishing the world would stutter-skip back to how things used to be. Hiro wrapped a hand in the strap of his backpack, letting the biting words behind his teeth turn his head for him.

He wanted to say he was angry. He wanted to say he was beyond furious when his eyes caught hers and her conversation cut off, phone half raised and pointed at Tadashi. Hiro wanted to spit out every horrible thought he’d had since the first lecture that morning, where people’s stares seemed to weigh like pounds of steel and shrapnel against his shoulders and neck.

“I didn’t think the trees by the dorms could’ve gotten any taller.”

It took Hiro a moment to notice that it was Tadashi talking, rather than the pulse of burning words that ran through his mind. There was a belated realization that Tadashi had a hand on Hiro’s upper arm and his line of sight really was trained on the towering oaks. Under the shade of his baseball cap, his eyes seemed to shine with the same wonder that Hiro had felt when he first had seen the campus. There was no awareness of the faces that had stared at them, and Hiro really doubted the childlike fascination Tadashi held could have been scared away with a few camera flashes—If he even saw them at all.

Hiro dared a glance back over his shoulder, noting that the girl and her friend had made themselves scarce. Even though he was younger, he liked to think that he made a pretty damn menacing fourteen year old. Or annoying enough for them to get the message.

Either worked.

“Yeah, I think so? They tried to trim them a few weeks ago but it grew back too quickly.” He shrugged his backpack higher up his shoulder as he spoke, watching birds flicker over the branches and clouds slip along the skyline.

“Doesn’t seem like it changed much here.”

“I guess not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.  
> I'm sure you've noted that I haven't posted a chapter in /ages/, but I assure you that the worst of the writer's block is over. this fic /will/ continue if it kills me, but I was halted for a while with real world issues. Your comments have really meant a ton to me while trying to work through the block and I can't thank you guys enough for them.  
> I would also like to note that I'm open to any fan art or anything of this fic! be sure to put a link in the comments/tag me on tumblr (im algebrasunshine there).  
> Aaaaaand in closing, I just want to say that I hope you're having a great day, and to please comment and leave kudos! (those little things have really kept me going, honestly.)


	6. Chapter 6

Hiro had always loved how the private workshop looked in the mid afternoon. The sunlight would flood in through the windows and glint off of any scrap of metal left lying around as well as the glass wall before burying itself among the soft off-whites and beiges the space was made in. The golden air seemed warmer than any other time, even with the industrial air conditioning pumping through the whole building (a background hum of a fan that everyone had learned to ignore in one way or another). Every deep breath in tasted like summer used to, electric and copper and warm, just barely dusting his skin with slanted rays from the window. Even now, as he leaned back in the office chair until his hair brushed the desk behind him, any sense of time was wiped from his mind as the imperceptible shadows shifted with the hour.

He tilted his chin up, inspecting the blueprints pinned to the wall above him, not quite able to make out the fine print from upsidedown. The lines of white pencil fit together in a dance of sharp angles and sketchy curves and seemed barely recognizable from the current vantage point; every tiny detail seemed to be magnified in the grid of the blue paper.

“How long did it take you to clean this place up?”

Hiro’s head snapped back, not without dizziness. “Uhh... Maybe two weeks? Three? I dunno.”  He vaguely noticed Tadashi poking around the shelves and boxes of parts spanning one of the walls, but was more focused on the room spinning around him, the lefts and rights slowly righting themselves. The two shaky versions of Tadashi seemed impressed, at least. “Had to clean up the workshop in the garage, too.”

It’d been an emotional few weeks, for sure. Even with the rest of the gang pitching in, they tended to stop every few minutes and reminisce over some little trinket that triggered a spectrum of of memories. The most crippling of these emotional blows had been found in some of the earliest drafts of plans for Baymax; Hiro vividly remembers sleeping with the navy sheet pressing creases onto his cheek for a week, just to get close to the thought of his brother.

But Tadashi didn’t need to know that.

Focusing on the sound of spare parts being shuffled around on the shelves, he kicked the swivel chair back into rotation, spinning until the room fell back into a blur of gold light and beige brushstrokes and frosted glass that swam with his head.

“That one was more your mess than mine, but I can’t knock that perseverance,” Tadashi pointed out, pulling a stack of papers out of a box and reading the small, handwritten print. “And you rewrote all of my old notes, apparently.”

“What we could read, yeah.” Hiro laughed, only half disappointed that his brother didn’t join in, or even fill the silence that had quickly consumed the lab.

“Aw come on, I thought it was funny.” He slowed the Desk-Chair-Tilt-A-Whirl until he could face his brother. “You can at least give a pity laugh or some— oh hey, Honey Lemon.”

Hiro probably should have expected the rest of the crew to show up at one point or another.

As a matter of fact, he had, but the some tiny corner of his mind—the same that wanted to keep his older brother home and safe like some fragile fantasy that would fall apart at the first touch with reality—refused to admit it. Maybe they’d all had off for the day. Maybe they didn’t realize the Hamadas would be there. 

Maybe they wanted to give the still grieving brothers space.

Maybe Hiro should have thought the day through a bit more.

Maybe he should have just texted them.

So, he supposed, it’s almost entirely his fault to find Honey Lemon standing in the doorway, phone hanging limply from her fingertips, a half typed out message and her earbuds playing music at a volume that even he could hear. While Hiro would regularly consider her to be an expressive person, nothing could compare to the way tears were magnified under her glasses like tiny stars suspended in her eyelashes.

If someone could collect every tear spilled for the Hamada household, there’d be a verifiable galaxy of saltwater held in jar after jar, nebulas built out of mourning lost and found.

That didn’t stop the astral tracks down her cheeks, the click of her heels the only grounding force to her as she ran up to Tadashi, wrapping her arms around his shoulders feather light. She cupped his face in both of her hands, pressing a kiss to his cheek in the way she greeted everyone. It’d become Honey Lemon’s signature hello, her defining goodbye, and Hiro supposed she was saying both and neither all at once to him.

Her phone, tucked into her pocket during the ordeal, was still humming with the tinny music, a strange overlay to her rapidfire talk. Her words slipped in and out of english, running through spanish and japanese and a heavy layer of disbelief. Tadashi certainly wouldn’t understand it all, but he seemed to get enough to smile along, grab her hands from his face and hold them reassuringly while she wore her spiel though.

Had tears been stars, Hiro thought that Tadashi’s eyes would be the dark matter of space. It wasn’t to say that he had emptiness in his eyes, nor that they seemed dull and devoid of light. No, between blinks, his sight seemed to be holding every ounce of the universe not collected by brightness. He could support the universe with a glance, open and accepting to the shooting stars that seemed to ricochet wherever he went.

It seemed to take ages, most of which Hiro spent scuffing the toes of his sneakers against the floor or focusing on the way the sunlight shifted across the room, unsure how to react to another person’s reaction to a resurrection. It wasn’t like there was a common courtesy or handbook for manners on the subject (the only precedent, he supposed, had been the Bible, and he doubted people were going to worship his brother any time soon). Eventually, though, Honey Lemon’s words had calmed to a mostly-in-english murmur.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said, offering a smile with a quivering lip.

“I guess I’m glad to _be_  back,” he replied, fingers twitching over hers before letting go. Honey’s hands immediately went to her phone, the music long since stopped, but still alive with alerts and soft buzzes. Her fingertips hesitated over the screen, like the reply was trapped under her nails.

“Hiro, bud!” A voice drifted down the hallway, recognizable at any distance. “I got some more test subjects for the invisible sandwich project, but since I can’t find HL anywhere, our transparent provisions are stuck on hold. And I mean,” Fred appeared around the corner of the doorframe, a bag with the faint outline of two sandwiches visible through the plastic in hand. “You can’t let two perfectly good BLTs go to— oh hey, Honey Lemon.”

Honey waved minutely, tilting her head in the direction of Tadashi before returning to the glow of her phone screen.

The sandwich bag was immediately tossed onto a desk (dangerously close to a disassembled laptop battery, newspaper spread under it to catch the parts) as Fred went up to him. “You’re real? Corporeal?” He asked, and Hiro didn’t miss the level of questioning in his eyes, the _can we joke about this_  permission hanging in the air.

Time hung still until Tadashi seemed to catch up with it and smile widely and shrug.

“Not a ghost, astral projection, alternate timeline, evil twin, robot?” At the shake of Tadashi’s head, Fred’s smile grew twice as large, a thousand watt expression that could rival the sun. “Where’s the mystic amulet? Bionic arm? Time travel? Adamantium claws? Super soldier serum? Come on Hamada, tell me the comic-booky secrets.”

“Not telling.” Tadashi laughed, a sound deep and genuine and maybe-almost-nearly as bright as the room around them. Maybe it was good that they were joking, lightening the air without ignoring the weight on their shoulders.

“My money’s on a revival rune.” Hiro called out, pushing the chair until he reached the desk with the sandwiches. Taking one out for himself, he spun the chair around, facing the group again. “Tattooed, like in the new issue of Doctor Slaughter.”

“Yep, bro, you got me. Cryptic symbols are the way to go.” Even Honey managed to laugh at this, the windchime-like giggle mixing with everyone else’s.

“Ooooh, where?” Fred mock whispered, as though it was a secret stuck between them. “Over your heart? The back of your neck? Oh! It’s gotta be a resurrection tramp stamp!”

“I can’t tell you. It loses its power then.”

“Definitely the tramp stamp, then.”

The four of them laughed and laughed like no time had passed at all. There was no mention of what comes after, what they do when the dust settles and have to move on from a stutter in everyone’s lives. It was almost as though the tear in the group had been sutured closed and for a singular brief moment, no one could tell stitch from scar from skin.

Wasabi had come into the room at one point, assessing Tadashi in the way he did everyone, a check for two arms, two hands, two legs, two feet, eyes, nose, skin free of scars or scabs, baseball cap tugged down over hair free of burn. Passing the test, Wasabi pulled him into a one armed hug, words not needed.

It wasn’t exactly reminiscing, but every other “ _remember when_ ” started to taste like nostalgia, even as people walked past the wall of glass, looking in on the scene. Their laughter only pittered out when Honey held her phone up, brows furrowed before smoothing out.

“She’s in the parking lot.”

The air became still as they waited. Sure, other labs still held chatter and the sound of machinery clicking together, but anyone in the room could hear a pin drop with how hard they were straining their ears.

So, when the rushed patter of footsteps came at a full sprint, softened only by rubber on smoothed tile, not a breath was let out. Hiro caught himself holding so tightly to the saran wrap left from his sandwich that it was turning his knuckles a ghostly shade of white.

There was no way to know how she would react, and they all memorized that fact by heart. Some days were cocky smiles and brushed aside comments of _yeah I’m okay, always have been, always will be_ , and others were...

Other days were not as good.

The footsteps slowed as they came closer to the glass, and Hiro could catch the labored breath of someone who just sprinted halfway across campus or was trying to hold back tears.

Or both. That was more likely.

When she stood in the doorway, she was nothing like the image he’d seen of her when they’d first met, all those months ago with a smirk on her face and grease under her nails.

Her hair stood on end the way it looked when she ran her hands through it a hundred thousand times in worry, the way she looked after riding her bike halfway across the city, with red cheeks and a glint in her eyes that couldn’t truly be placed; She was something living and livid.

The motorcycle helmet tucked under her shoulder tumbled out of her grasp and rolled across the floor, forgotten as she stalked up to Tadashi, standing somewhere around his shoulder but twice his height in the fury she held herself with.

“You,” Gogo said, bitten down fingernail pressed against his shirt in accusation. Hiro could hear the tightness in her voice, the strained angle of her stance. She seemed like she was on the verge of a rant, a tear-stained tirade, but everything in her deflated as she wrapped him up in a bone-crushing hug. Hiro could hear her muffled sob, and a single glance at everyone told that they could as well.

“Don’t you ever fucking do that again,” she mumbled, like it was something they could help, something that ever could be replicated.

Maybe, just maybe, in her mind, it could.

Tadashi blinking away the shock, smiled in the soft, sad way that couldn’t reach the eyes before wrapping his arms around her. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

And he wouldn’t.

No one would.

And things would be okay.

———

After everyone had cleared out, sandwiches had been eaten and tears had ben washed away and jokes had been exchanged, the light was starting to slip into that of evening. Pinks and oranges replaced the golden brush of the room around them, and the lights overhead had automatically clicked on with their mindless buzz.

Tadashi was back to riffling through the wall of shelves and supplies, looking for some part or another that Hiro had lost track of.

“Remember that girl Cindy from your BioMed class?” Hiro asked, chewing on the eraser of a pencil. He was trying to sketch up something for his new super suit, a way to set up a HUD that would turn on without voice commands. He made sure to hunch over the work, not exactly ready to tell the history of crime fighting to his brother.

Boxes shuffled behind Hiro as Tadashi continued his search. “How could I forget? She wouldn’t shut up about that neuro-stint thing she was working on.”

“Yeah that fell through.”  

“Shocker. What’s she working on now?”

“Something with light pulses on REM sleep? Supposed to get more vivid dreams or something like that.” The day had been long and the hand-drawn lines were starting to blur together, but he needed to get this done before he fell asleep. It would be possible to work in the headband from the microbots, if he could get the tech small enough and hidden well enough away.

“Good luck with her getting test subjects for that one. Do you have any idea where on earth this microchip could be? I had on old OS of Baymax’s on it and I want to test the language mods.”

“I dunno, top shelf?”  The sound of more things moving around came with the the slide of cardboard on plastic before it was dropped on the floor with a careful thud. Maybe if he just reworked the casing, he could get it to fit above the visor—

“Hiro?”

Hiro tucked the pencil behind his ear. “Yeah?”

“What’s this?”

He pushed the chair around, mildly annoyed at the interruption of his work before every thought left his mind.

Tadashi stood in the center of the lab, a cardboard box opened at his feet and a familiar purple helmet cradled in his hands.

“What is this?” He repeated, looking back into the box. Hiro already knew what he would find: old prototypes for Wasabi’s blades, half-built rollerskates in Gogo Tomago Yellow, the metal frame for one Honey Lemon’s purses.

“It’s a long story,” Hiro said quietly, trying to ignore the way Tadashi’s confusion and fear reflected in the tinted glass of the helmet.

“I have time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a result of three days on cold meds and too much free time. I'm pretty nervous about posting it, and it's more raw emotion than I'm used to writing. 
> 
> How did you guys like it? Is anyone excited for what's to come? Kudos and comments tend to help a ton, and your input does help to shape the story!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've missed this work. I've kind of missed this work a lot.

From the parking lot, the faint glow from streetlamps bled into the cabin of the pickup truck, throwing shadows against mirrors, against the tinny static from the radio before it had been clicked off. The air seemed too still, too silent, and Hiro tried to ignore the unreadable look on his brother’s face.

He’d told him everything, sure. Hiro wouldn’t pretend that he liked to keep secrets, and if he was going to be honest, it had been a relief to sit on the floor of the lab and just talk for an hour about everything that had happened, tears threatening his vision the entire time. He didn’t care about the silence, about the ache in his chest, about how he kept going on and on while they walked out of the building, across the lot, and into the car.

Now though, with the description just off his tongue and the entire story floating in the air between them, the silence was more suffocating than anything he could imagine. Tadashi’s brow furrowed, and Hiro could almost barely define what the other was feeling beneath it all. 

“So let me get this straight,” Tadashi said, eyes staring unseeingly out the windshield. “You put armor on my robot. You put armor on my marshmallow robot and taught him karate to avenge my death, what the fuck.”

Of course that was the detail that he fixated on.

“When you put it like that,” Hiro started, not sure if he should cry or just laugh at the whole thing. “But nothing about the villain really being your mentor the entire time? The dimensional travel? You’re taking this pretty well for something that sounds like a plot to a bad comic book.”

Tadashi busied himself with pulling out of the spot, and the rumble of the engine was a thankless reprieve from the too-long beats between thoughts. Hiro didn’t miss the quick once over to make sure they both had their seatbelts on, that everything was safe before they started moving.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to take this,” he eventually said, after they had drifted out of the pool of light from the parking lot streetlamps and into the nearly empty roads leading back into the city. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to take _any_ of this, really. Apparently I was dead, and now I’m not. My little brother grew up in the time it took me to blink, but everyone’s focusing on how I’m the Second Coming or something.”

The truck rolled up to a stoplight, and Hiro closed his eyes for a split second, opening them to find the cabin bathed in yellow, then red as the signals changed. “So to hear that you all made some superhero team, fought off the end of the universe with the power of friendship or whatever, and shoved Baymax in some carbon-fiber suit? You can figure that I’m gonna focus on the one issue I can even comprehend.” Had it not been in bad taste, he would have remarked on how Tadashi’s tense expression, half in shadow, seemed almost ghostly in its concern. 

“I’m sorry.” As the car lurched forward again and the cabin was dashed with passing pale green light, Hiro picked at the patches on his messenger bag, feeling the conversation only half over.

“It’s not something you have to be sorry for,” Tadashi said as his white-knuckle grip loosened on the wheel. It was something he was used to, and he could pinpoint the exact moment guilt rushed into Tadashi’s tone. “I’m the one who missed out on such a big part of your life, and I never want to feel like that again. You’re in college fighting crime, for christsakes.”

Neither said anything. Rather than turn onto the streets heavy with hills and cherry blossoms that the café was nestled in, Tadashi continued through downtown. He didn’t mention he was taking the long way home, and Hiro decided not to either.

“It would have happened anyway, you know,” Hiro said before he knew the words were coming out. “Maybe not the crime fighting, but definitely college, at some point. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that you didn’t grow up the second Mom and Dad weren’t around. I’m not going to sit around and pretend that the world is fair or good, but I need you to understand _just for a second_  that you being gone hurt me more than anything I can remember and that pain changes people.” He didn’t know when he felt tears at the corners of his eyes or when his voice felt stiff with emotion, but it suddenly hit him all at once. It felt hard to focus on anything other than the passing streetlights and neon signs.

He regretted the words the second they were said; they felt too raw in the stale air of the pickup truck, but he didn’t know what the universe expected of him anymore. He flexed his fingers to find them wound in the strap of his messenger bag so tight that he could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips.

“I don’t wish you stayed the same, god no, I remember how miserable you were being bored all the time. I just...” he sighed. “I just wish I remembered something about it, anything. I don’t even remember the fire. Your presentation just ended and then... nothing. It just feels like everything is slipping through my hands like sand all of a sudden. I blink, you’re in college. I blink, you’re fighting crime. I blink, I’m apparently dead. I blink, I’m not. I would kill to see you on your first day, the smile on Aunt Cass’s face, anything.”

They wordlessly exited the city crush and turned onto their street, victorians rising up as the streets widened and the hills steepened. Hiro dared to lower his window, cranking the old handle until the thinnest sliver of cold air filled the space. 

“You’re here now, at least.”

“I’m here now.” Tadashi repeated, and Hiro would have lost it to the wind if they hadn’t pulled to a stop in front of the café. “I’m here now, but that’s besides the point.” The second the car was in park, he tilted his head back, staring at the pockmarked metal roof. Had he not been silhouetted in the light diffused from streetlights with his baseball cap askew, Hiro supposed he could have seen the exhaustion in his eyes, the weight in his expression, the spiderweb of scars along the back of his head, but none of that was there. In its stead was the outline of someone who seemed so much younger, so much more lost than he could have imagined. For the briefest second, Hiro listened to his brother breathe, a steady rhythm he hadn’t realized he'd forgotten. “Tell me the part about flying over San Fransokyo again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive the pun, but this fic has risen from the grave! Life has been so hectic lately, but things should quiet down for a bit so I can write. I'd love some feedback on this chapter, and I can't stress how much the kind words from you guys has helped me through. I started this fic years ago and I am still overwhelmed by the support I've received. I assure you that this fic is nowhere near dead!


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